


If Lost, Please Return To...

by chaya



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Team Bonding, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-05-29 15:32:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15076214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaya/pseuds/chaya
Summary: The team teaches Kiri some basic life skills. Fjord has Dad Instincts. Is anyone shocked?





	If Lost, Please Return To...

“I am friendly,” Mollymauk reads in a calm voice.

“ _I am friendly,_ ” Kiri repeats. As the cart hits a bump in the road, her light body is dislodged from its perch on the pile of blankets. Without looking away from the reigns, Fjord throws an arm out behind him to keep her from tipping over.

“I am lost,” Mollymauk continues. “Please take me to the nearest temple.”

“ _I am lost. Please take me to the nearest temple._ ” Kiri peeks over the edge of the phrasebook Molly is holding, trying to determine how much more there is to go.

Molly notices. “Almost halfway, love,” he promises. “I’m skipping the shopping and bartering sections, we’re only doing the important bits.”

“ _Good girls do their course work,_ ” Kiri says in Jester’s voice, and Molly nods in solemn agreement. “ _And then good girls get dessert!_ ”

Fjord chuckles. “I knew that second part was comin’.”

**

Nott trains Kiri how to escape larger opponents, and Fjord is the ‘bad guy’ she has to get away from.

After half an hour, Jester is the one to heal the talon scratches on Fjord’s arm. Caleb turns out to be the one to get Kiri down from the tree and reassure her that nobody is mad.

Beau is the one to heap extra portions onto Kiri’s plate that night at the camp fire. That seems to get the last bit of the guilt out of her system. Kiri sits up a little straighter on her log after that, feet kicking out as she holds the plate with tiny hands.

**

“You hook it enough that it stays on there, but you also want some danglin’, to move around and attract the fish.” Fjord puts his worm on his hook, then holds it up for Kiri to see.

“ _I’ll try_ ,” Kiri says in Yasha’s uncertain voice, and rummages in the little bowl of dirty worms for just the right one. Her fingers are a little clumsy, sharp, but Molly insists that he’s heard of her folk being extremely dexterous and able to do detailed artisinal work. Maybe it will come with age, Fjord thinks, as she jams the head onto the hook and then winds some more of the body around it. Shyly, she looks up at him.

“Try pokin’ one more part on there to make sure he doesn’t fall off when he gets in the water.”

“ _One more part_ ,” Kiri echoes, and fiddles a bit until she’s done so. When she holds it out and a decent amount of the worm is still dangling away from the hook, she poofs up proudly.

“Good! Good. Now, casting, the most important part of this whole thing, are you paying attention? Good. It’s lookin’ around to make sure you’re not gonna catch anybody sitting next to you, any overhanging trees…” He makes a show of looking up and around and behind him, even though they camped about twenty feet down the lake’s edge. Kiri does the same, eventually nudging her beak questioningly at Fjord himself. “Right. So, I put my rod out like this, away from you, so when it swings…” He throws the line out in a smooth arc. “So you do that, but in the other direction.”

Kiri shuffles nervously, adjusting her grip on the too-big rod, looking around again, before clicking several times as if to psych herself up. She holds the rod to her left, arcing it with not quite enough inertia, only getting it a few feet into the water. A sad click.

“No, that was good!” Fjord beams and pats her on the head. “You did good. You didn’t hurt anybody, and there’s little fish up where you cast yours. We can turn those into bait for even bigger ones.”

“ _Even bigger ones._ ” Kiri re-poofs.

**

They keep the biggest perch she catches. Yasha cooks it and cuts it into a few strips, and as Kiri eats it Fjord is grinning from pointed ear to pointed ear.

**

Beau retakes her spot at the pub table. “Talked with the bartender. There’s a poor house at the north side of town.” 

Jester gives her a confused look before understanding crosses her face. She nods, sighing and deflating. “We’ll check it,” she says reluctantly, nudging Caleb to add it to his mental to-do list for tomorrow. They probably won’t find any Kenku family there, and they almost definitely won’t decide it’s suitable to leave Kiri at, but they still make themselves check.

“ _Bier,_ ” Kiri says in Caleb’s voice, tilting her head towards Nott’s mug with a mix of curiosity and hopefulness.

“No,” Nott says gently, and pats her head. Kiri clicks and leans into it.


End file.
